MIE Properties wants to build two office buildings at U of MD Science

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 8, 2004 by Sofia Kosmetatos

Seeking to capitalize on a hot office market, MIE Properties Inc. wants to build two 40,800 square-foot office buildings on two plots originally designated for flex space in the University of Maryland Science and Technology Center.

The buildings are planned for the Northeast corner of the intersection of US 301 and MD 50 in Bowie.

We felt that's what the market conditions were requesting, said MIE Vice President Gerald Jerry Wit.

The changes to the planned development come as the Prince George's County Council reviews plans submitted by the company in April to add residential and retail to the 400-acre development.

This is a tweak in those plans, said Wit.

Before MIE can proceed with its plans, it must convince the planning board to approve the design for the buildings. Planning staff recommended denial, citing non-conformance with the Comprehensive Design Plan approved for the center in 1986. The planning board could make a decision at another meeting with the developers on July 8.

Wit and Development Director Ramon Benitez said that while the three flex buildings Catonsville-based MIE has built at the center are doing well, they still have available space - 51,000 square feet in all.

The opportunity, they said lies in office space, especially considering the health of the Bowie submarket, which has been absorbing about 30,000 square feet per year.

But considerations for a sensitive government neighbor - the buildings would be adjacent to one of the oldest buildings in the center, the home of the Institute for Defense Analysis - and about 225,000 square feet of other office space in the Bowie submarket that Benitez said will come online within the next two years, means MIE is proceeding with some caution.

The MIE office buildings are planned at only two floors each, at least two floors lower than the government building next door. MIE doesn't want to get ahead of itself, said Benitez.

Prince George's County's office market has become quite competitive with other parts of the region, said Sandy Paul, mid- Atlantic research director for Delta Associates, a commercial real estate research firm. Paul credits the lower rents and proximity to the Metro rail line for the popularity of the county market. Average effective rents are about $20 per square foot, as much as $10 less than rates in Montgomery County and $20 lower than rates in Washington, Paul said.

But Paul is only aware of 24,000 square feet of office space under development in the Bowie area.

And he questions whether the Bowie market or even the county as a whole can absorb the space Benitez claims will be coming online. In the last three years, Bowie has not cracked 100,000 square feet in absorption, he said.

Countywide, Delta projects total absorption at just over 200,000 square feet for the first half of this year. Last year net absorption was negative 300,000 square feet. In 2002, it was 329,000 square feet.